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190    THE CRISIS

[[images - seven photographs of the following men]]

THE LATE W. P. HALL
THE LATE A. MESERVE
THE LATE E. T. JONES
ARCHDEACON J. S. RUSSELL
THE LATE DR. N. B. FORD
REV. L. G. JORDAN
DR. O .D. PORTER



MEN OF THE MONTH       191

force and he was always pleased with their services. The wife of the late Mr. W. A. Hunton of the International Young Men's Christian Association, and the wife of Dr. Kenney, the school physician at the Tuskegee Institute, were formerly his pupils in the Bowdoin School of Boston.
About a year before his death he visited Shaw University where he gave several addresses to the teachers and students. He was very deeply interested in the progress of the colored race and was gratified by his last visit to Shaw to see the splendid advance that had been made during a generation of freedom.

A SURGEON.

THE community of Springfield, Ill., feels a serious loss in the recent death of Dr. Noel Bertram Ford, son of Major and Mrs. G. W. Ford. This eminently useful and successful citizen and surgeon was born in Beaufort, S.C., December 1, 1881. He was educated in the public schools of Fort Scott, Kansas, and was later, in April 1906, graduated with the degree of M.D. from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn.

Dr. Ford has always let a very active life. He engaged in hunting, was captain of the Varsity football team at Meharry, enlisted at sixteen in the 23d Kansas Volunteers and served on year with honor in Cuba. He was especially self-denying and unsparing of time and energy in his work as a physician. He died March 3, 1917, leaving a widow and one child.

A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MAN.

MR. WALTER P. HALL was born in Philadelphia, Pa., Aug. 18, 1849. He served in the War of Rebellion from 1863 to its close. His civic career was one of exceptional interest and usefulness. For forty years he was an officer in Union A. M. E. Church and was at the time of his death the Superintendent of its Sunday School. In 1889, he organized the Pioneer Building and Loan Association, which has done a large volume of business without a reverse. Up to 1917 he had been its only president. He was president, too, of the Mercy Hospital.

Mr. Hall was best known in Philadelphia though his position as one of the largest retail merchants in the city. He dealt in butter, eggs, poultry, and game. His customers ranked from amount the best and wealthiest people in the town. This in itself is a tribute to the high quality both of his goods and of his business integrity. He died Monday, May 17, 1917, leaving a large estate.

A MISSIONARY SECRETARY.

REV. L. G. JORDAN, D.D., corresponding secretary of the Foreign Mission Board, N.B.C. of the U.S.A., has just returned from a trip to Liberia, West Coast Africa. His prime object was the dedication of the Bible Industrial Academy at Fortsville, Grand Bassa, West Coast Africa, where the Foreign Mission Board, N.B.C. has a station, but incidentally he was to touch all points on the West Coast where the Board had work. It was his good fortune to touch Dakar, Senegal, Freetown, Sierra Leone, as well as Monrovia, Liberia, on the Coast, along with a number of inland stations. He sailed January 13, 1917. To make the trip he traveled by sea 11,700 miles, by small boats 120 miles, by canoe 110 miles, on foot 98 miles.

Dr. Jordan has been corresponding secretary of the Mission Board, which he now serves, for 21 years.

It is gratifying to note that His Excellency President Howard of Liberia has conferred upon Dr. Jordan the title of Knight Commander of the Humane Order of African Redemption.

A SUCCESSFUL PHYSICIAN.

ONE of the most influential and successful citizens of Bowling Green, Ky., is Dr. O. D. Porter. Dr. Porter was born in Bowling Green and received his early education there. In 1884 he entered Fisk University, where he received his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1891. Then he went to Meharry Medical College from which he was graduated three years later. He returned to Bowling Green, passed the medical examination and began his practices as a physician.

Dr. Porter owns his two-story brick residence and very valuable property next to the new $150,000 Custom House on Main Street. He attributes much of his success to his wife who is a woman on the alert to relieve him of such duties as would take him from his practice or business.